9:02 p.m., Sunday, June 9. France is plunged into a dizzying unknown, after the presidential announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly. Since then, the campaign has been in full swing to elect the 577 deputies who will make up the National Assembly and who will shape the future majority that will govern the country.
This Tuesday, July 2, the National Rally (RN) was once again bothered by its old demons, a Macronist minister who was holding on was asked to withdraw by Emmanuel Macron and Gabriel Attal, and Marine Le Pen is preparing to campaign to gather a majority. Finally, in the continuum of calls for withdrawals, several unions are urging voters to choose the candidate in a position to beat the party to the punch.
Today’s figure: more than 210 withdrawals
This Tuesday, the thermostat was only showing about twenty degrees. However, the number of triangular candidates has melted like snow in the sun. From around 300 on the evening of the first round of the legislative elections on Sunday evening, it is now 109. A contraction that was expected after the widespread calls to withdraw. Shortly after 6 p.m., the deadline for submitting candidacies, AFP recorded 214 withdrawals to counter the RN.
On the left, the NFP – excluding LFI – had taken the lead by calling in a column published in the World to block the RN. Even if it meant sacrificing some candidates. A few minutes after the results of the first round, Jean-Luc Mélenchon fell into step, recycling his cliché from the 2022 elections: “Not a single vote in the National Rally.”
A slogan taken up by a certain Gabriel Attal, who put an end to several days of wooden language and “neither-nor”. The Prime Minister gives the slogan: the candidates of the presidential majority whose maintenance in third position could lead to the election of an RN deputy must withdraw.
The instruction also applies to members of the government who are candidates in their constituency. As good students, Secretary of State Sabrina Agresti-Roubache and Ministers Marie Guévenoux and Fadila Khattabi announced their withdrawal on Monday.
Among the members of the government, only Dominique Faure, delegate for local authorities, is reluctant to renounce her candidacy. A freedom that did not please the executive couple: “The President of the Republic and the Prime Minister asked me to withdraw my candidacy in the second round,” she declared on Tuesday, finally throwing in the towel.
Today’s strategy: how Le Pen plans to obtain an absolute majority…
Since the dissolution of the National Assembly, Jordan Bardella has been iterating: “We will refuse Matignon if the French do not give us an absolute majority”. Unless… “deputies, for example various right-wingers, various left-wingers, some LR who have expressed in the past a closeness to us, our options” agree to form an alliance with the RN, Marine Le Pen casually blurted out on France Inter this Tuesday morning.
So, in the event of a relative majority of some 270 seats, the RN executives would go and sound out the other parties: “Are you ready to participate with us in a new majority for a new policy, yes or no? Are you ready to vote for confidence? Are you ready to vote for the budget?”, asks Marine Le Pen, who confirms: “If we have a majority at that time, then yes, of course, we will go and do what the voters elected us for.”
Scandal of the day: an RN candidate wears a Nazi cap
There was the presence at the march against anti-Semitism on November 12. Then, the calls to support the Jews of France, victims of the explosion of anti-Semitism throughout the European campaign. Recently, the endorsement of the lawyer and Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, for whom the RN “supports the Jews”: the acme of years of de-demonization.
How could we then think that the National Rally has not been purged of the anti-Semitism that has characterized it for so long? Simply by looking at those who claim its colors. A quick zoom on some of the candidates invested for these legislative elections: “Hitler may not have killed enough of them” is said to have said the mayor of Cholet, candidate of the RN-Ciotti alliance about the Gypsies. “The gas has done justice to the victims of the Holocaust”, wrote Joseph Martin, Front National candidate in Morbihan on his X account in 2018.
When it is not clearly assumed, anti-Semitism in the RN is mixed with conspiracy theories. Thus in January 2022, Agnès Pageard (10th constituency of Paris), wrote: “We are being pestered with Momo who does not want to deliver kosher kebabs. But that our “elites” sodomize their own children is much more serious. Momo has no power, Lang, Attali, Finkielkraut, Duhamel, Kouchner, Fabius, Guigou, Cohn Bendit, BHL… yes”. In Côte d’Or, the frontist Sophie Dumont insinuates that Eric Zemmour’s party, Reconquête, would be financed by Jews…
But a photograph brought to light on social networks yesterday is no excuse for any misunderstanding: it shows the RN candidate for the first constituency of Calvados, Ludivine Daoud, all smiles, a Nazi cap screwed on her head… The RN may well keep a low profile by dismissing certain troublesome candidates, and swear to have completely cleansed itself of its original anti-Semitism, but it still keeps the tune and the song in its ranks.
Today’s call: several unions urge people to vote for the candidates best placed against the RN
Since Sunday evening, calls to “block” the National Front party have been flooding the media and social networks. Opponents, civil society, businesses, associations, political veterans… The union world is also mobilizing, believing that the RN victory casts the shadow of a decline in “union freedom, freedom of justice, freedom of the press”.
Thus, the CFDT, CGT, Unsa, FSU and Solidaires have taken up the pen in a joint press releaseurging voters to vote “for the candidates best placed to beat the far right.” And to specify: “We will never pit the far right against any other political force.” A way of disagreeing with those who draw a line of equality between the National Rally and La France Insoumise.